Social Media Muscle - Lex Griffin Lean Gains

If online is where you find your fitness fix, chances are you’ve stumbled upon Lex Griffin. The perfect blend of being in damn good nick while remaining relatable to us mere mortals means that @lex_fitness has amassed over 350k followers on instagram and garnered a similar following on his Youtube channel. Lex reveals all for TRAIN magazine readers. Here are Lex Griffin’s rules for lean muscle building success while living life.

No 1: Mistakes will be made

Lifting for your ego. I don’t think it comes from a bad place, necessarily. I believe it’s just people being overzealous and enthusiastic. Making sure that your technique comes before weight will lead to your loads increasing over time as a by-product.

No 2: The biggest fitness myths

The typical “6-meals-a-day” tactic has been proven as nonsense – as long as you hit your nutrition targets over the day, you’ll be absolutely fine. It’s about fitting your eating around your lifestyle for success. If you get hungry 6 times a day, eat 6 times a day. If 3 meals fit better for you, then eat 3. Another myth is that there’s a difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. It’s a deeper topic but the difference between processed and whole foods, is the lack of micronutrients in processed. As long as you make up the micronutrients across the day and hit your macronutrient targets, though, you can still eat things like ice cream, chocolate and biscuits.

No 3: Training lone wolf or pack training?

There are positives to both. If you’re training on your own, you’ll build self-drive and can get your head down to get on with it. You learn to be self-critical in a positive way. If you’re training with a partner, take advantage – they can keep your ego in check by being there and looking after your technique. When they say ‘do this a little different’ or ‘pull that side in a little bit’, it’s positive, encouraging critique that’ll boost the effectiveness of your workout.

No 4: Fear is a four-letter word

I’m constantly challenging myself by asking, “have I been doing the same thing for a while and am I still enjoying myself, or would I rather be doing something else?” I don’t think you should ever be afraid to change something – but naturally fear will hold you back. You’ll never go backwards. What you achieve now, you keep. Adding anything new in, you’ll create a new stimulus and gain from it.

No 5: Stay in the game

Know your own body and adapt your training for your particular structure. For, someone who’s good at powerlifting, hitting big compound lifts like the deadlift, might be great for them. Me, well, I have the joints of a 12-year-old girl, so I’m not designed for heavy, compound lifts week in and week out. I include heavy lifts once every 3 weeks. Time is our biggest commodity in this game. If you take time away because of injury, you take away time you could have used for results.

No 6: Overdoing protein

At the risk of pissing everyone off, people concentrate far too much on protein. Once you hit a daily baseline of around 150-200g of protein, that’s going to cover most people’s requirements. The two manipulations you’ll make when building muscle or cutting is carbs and fats. How you manipulate them is down to how your body functions. Me personally, I keep my fats pretty stable when I’m bulking or cutting and adjust my carbohydrates up or down depending on my goals. Others take their fats high and drop their carbs really low. Fats are responsible for hormone production so you won’t want to take them super low in general.

No 7: Year round ripped

There’s no secret to staying lean, only the rule of knowing your calorie and macronutrient intake. If you have control over your consumption, you have control over how your body looks. It’s the people who go on a blind gaining phase where they’re eating anything and everything – they’re going to quickly go out of shape and gain too much body fat. It’s like going to a gas station, standing three feet back from your car and hoping the gas goes into your fuel tank. You’re going to spill.

No 8: Timelines can be fickle

Be realistic with your timelines – for some reason people have adapted to 8-12 week timelines and it’s just not realistic. You’re looking at more like 12 months. That way you have an achievable goal with visible muscle growth over time rather than rushing a process that is essentially a lifetime goal.

My physique inspirations

Arnold, Stallone, Bruce Lee, Van Damme – I grew up watching them in action movies and still love them to this day. I’m first in line for their new releases, even if the movie is terrible. In my eye’s, these guys were how I felt a man should physically look.

The Lex Griffin lean gains workout

Auto-regulation

I set some rules for myself so that I stay in line with the latest science and am training optimally, but after that I go by feel. If a muscle doesn’t feel recovered, I’ll switch it out for another that feels ready to go.

Rule 1 : Train every muscle group once every 48-72 hours as protein synthesis is only elevated for that amount of time.

Rule 2 : 2-3 body parts trained per session. This allows me to achieve enough volume over the week in order for each body part to grow

Rule 3 : 2 exercises for each body part, per session. 1 x multi-joint compound, 1 x isolation exercise.

Rule 4 : I use between 5-7 sets for each exercise but I cycle my reps weekly to preserve my joints and add variety.

Week 1	Strength	4-8 reps
Week 2	Hypertrophy	8-12 reps
Week 3	Lighter loads/higher rep	12-15 reps
Week 4	REPEAT

Day 1	Upper body push
Day 2	Upper body pull
Day 3	Legs
Day 4	Rest
Day 5	Upper body push
Day 6	Upper body pull
Day 7	Rest/depending on feel

Note : All of these body parts are subject to change. For one example, if my shoulders are fried on the day I’m supposed to train them, I’ll switch them out for my biceps if they’re feeling good and hit shoulders the next day etc.